Holocaust denier says he attacked Wiesel

SAN FRANCISCO -- Holocaust survivor and chronicler Elie Wiesel escaped unharmed from an attacker who may have been a Holocaust denier, police in San Francisco say.

Wiesel was accosted in the elevator at the Argent Hotel, where he was attending a conference on "Facing Violence: Justice, Religion and Conflict Resolution," police said. A man insisted on interviewing Wiesel, who agreed but said they would talk in the hotel lobby.

Police Sgt. Neville Gittens told the San Francisco Chronicle the man stopped the elevator and tried to force Wiesel into a room on the sixth floor. Wiesel, yelling, was able to break free and get to the lobby, where he called police.

A man using the name Eric Hunt posted an account of the attack on an anti-Semitic Web site and claimed to be the person who approached Wiesel, the Chronicle said.

"I had planned to bring Wiesel to my hotel room, where he would truthfully answer my questions regarding the fact that his non-fiction Holocaust memoir, 'Night,' is almost entirely fictitious," Hunt wrote.